Not fast, exactly, but purposeful in a way that made the air around her feel like it was parting. She stopped at his desk. “Marcus called,” he said, “twice. He’ll accept 26 hours. His lawyer needs the extra two.” “Fine.” She took the message slip he held out. “Any issues with the document pulls?” “One.
The Henderson exhibit wasn’t in the folder they sent over last week. I pulled it from the archived version, which is the same document, but someone should flag that the main folder is missing it.” “I’ll have it look at it.” She glanced around the desk. “You haven’t moved anything.” “I moved the phone 2 inches to the left so I could reach it faster.
I can move it back.” “Leave it.” She went into her office, then stopped with her hand on the doorframe. “Lunch?” “I don’t eat at my desk. I eat in the small conference room, second door on the left, every day at 12:30. There’s a list of approved restaurants in the top drawer. Order from Nuri, whatever they have today, and have it there by 12:20.
I’m not waiting for cold food.” “What if I order from somewhere not on the list?” She turned slightly. “Then you’d better be right.” She went inside. He heard the door click shut. Through the frosted glass, he could see her sitting down, already reaching for something on her desk, already moving on to the next problem.
Ethan opened the top drawer, looked at the restaurant list for approximately 4 seconds, then pulled out his phone and ordered from a Korean BBQ place three blocks over that wasn’t on it. Oh, I was right. She came out to the conference room at 12:28, sat down, looked at the container in front of her, and said nothing for a moment.
“This isn’t Nuri.” “No, but it’s better, and it was ready in 15 minutes, which is faster than Nuri delivers at lunch.” She opened the container, looked at it, picked up the plastic fork. “What is it?” “Japchae. Glass noodles, vegetables, beef. It’s good.” She took a bite without commenting. He’d brought his own lunch, a sandwich he’d made that morning before dropping Mia at school, and he ate at the other end of the table while reviewing her afternoon calendar on the tablet she’d set him up with that morning.
Halfway through her container, she said, “You went off the list.” “I did.” “I give instructions for a reason.” “The list is 3 years old. Half those restaurants have closed or changed menus. The Noori listing doesn’t even have the right phone number.” She set down her fork. “How do you know?” “I called it. Got a dry cleaner.
” He kept his eyes on the tablet. “I’ll update the list this afternoon if you want.” A pause. He could feel her looking at him. “Update the list,” she said, and picked up her fork again. The afternoon was harder. An investor call ran over by 40 minutes because the lead partner, a man named Greenberg, who apparently had strong opinions about slide font sizes, kept derailing the presentation with irrelevant questions.
Ethan sat outside the call, monitoring a separate line, and twice sent Ava silent text prompts with notes on Greenberg’s previous objections from archived calls, which she incorporated into her responses mid-sentence without missing a beat. Then there was the draft press release for a new product announcement that needed to go to the communications team, except the communications director was traveling and her deputy had gotten the date wrong and sent a version with a typo in the product name, Syntex rendered as Syntex, to four journalists
who were going to publish in the morning. Ethan caught it at 4:15, called the deputy, got voicemail, called the journalists directly with the corrected embargo version, called the deputy back a second time, left a message that was polite but not warm, and had a corrected copy on Ava’s desk for approval by 4:47.
She reviewed it in under 90 seconds, signed off, and said, “How did you catch the typo?” “Proofreading habit. I do it automatically.” “The deputy didn’t catch it.” “No.” “He should have.” “He should have,” Ethan agreed. She looked at the clock on the wall. It was 10 minutes to 5. “Who did you call at the journalist outlets?” “Chen at TechCrunch, the deputy editor at Wired because Chen had already left for the day, and Namdi at The Verge.
” “They all confirmed receipt.” “Namdi?” She looked at him more carefully. “You know Michael Namdi?” “We worked briefly at the same company about 6 years ago before he moved to editorial. He’s good people.” She studied him with that flat measuring look he was starting to recognize. Not hostile, just precise.
Like she was recalibrating something. “Go home,” she said. “You’re here at 8:00 tomorrow.” He saved what he was working on and started closing things down. “What time do you arrive?” “6:00.” “Do you want anything when I get here? Coffee, messages pulled, anything?” “The overnight briefing summary will be in my inbox by 7:00.
Have it printed and annotated with anything that needs same-day response before I come out of the morning call.” “What’s the morning call?” “Singapore. It starts at 6:45 and ends whenever they stop arguing.” “Do they argue a lot?” “Every single time.” She was already turning back to her office. “Good night, Ms. Sinclair.” She paused.
Almost imperceptibly. Nobody had wished her good night in some time, he suspected. He didn’t know that for certain. But there was something in the pause. “Good night,” she said without turning around and went into her office. The next morning, Jenna Park met him at the elevator looking like she’d seen something she needed to tell someone about.
“You’re back,” she said. “I work here.” “Temporarily.” “Temporarily, yes, but I work here.” She stared at him. “Do you know you’re the first person since Terry Lawson who has come back a second day?” “Terry lasted until the end of Tuesday. It’s now Wednesday.” “I’m aware of what day it is.” “She’s been here since 6:00.
